A Public Service Announcement

I live in the worst hit county in the worst hit state for Lymes disease this year. this is the first year I’ve had deer ticks bite me while in my yard which was my safe haven, after not being able to go in the woods I used to romp around as a kid with out first bathing in deet.Now I have come home from work tonight with my right knee as big as the the melons I hope to grow in the short N.H summer.looks like I’m going to the doc on Monday. in the mean time any little freckle or phantom itch feels like a tick:scream:.deet is your friend be careful out there.

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Before I knew about the tick problem in the Midwest,I was traveling once to visit my sister in Kansas.
Outside of Lincoln,NE,there are a bunch of ponds and small lakes on both sides of the highway.It was afternoon and I decided to stop and do some fishing.Afterwards,I drove to a nearby grocery store and by that time it was dark.
Just about the time getting out of the car,there were odd feelings coming from inside my pant legs.I dropped my pants in the parking lot and using a flashlight,saw numerous ticks,probably over a dozen,crawling on my legs and inside the pants.
After taking care of them,I talked to a local and he said about the same thing as John’s quote.
There actually was one I didn’t find til later,attached to the back of my leg.Thankfully,the thing wasn’t carrying any disease.
I appreciate this thread and the info given. Brady

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Perhaps this is a place to ask. Why do (some) people not like DEET? I’ve never really used much bug spray, but given how bad ticks are this year I should get some.

DEET is poison. You have to be careful when using it. It smells. It also leaves sticky feeling on the skin. But comparing to ticks and mosquitoes - I can live with DEET :slight_smile:

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Fishing out on Lake Huron when the wind dies down the gnats and flies get so thick they cover you completely and even deet doesn’t keep them off you. They get in your ears and nose and mouth too.The boat turns from white to a black grease! It’s fun to wash. The captain is a die hard fisherman and stays till we get our limits. I’m usually fishing with my shirt over my head when it’s like that. I do like trying for our limits though.

It will also destroy your sunglasses,watch or phone screen.it will literally melt a layer off this stuff if you use the 100 percent strength stuff.

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I know someone that got Lyme Disease in North Dakota… Counties just north of me have it bad. My brother’s own some land right in the heart of it. The spring is so bad because its the little nymphs that get you and the damn things are microscopic.

My bulls eye rash was huge. Took up like most of my back. I had horrible flu like symptoms when i got it. Felt like i got hit by a truck.

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Did they find a cure for limes?

Consumer Reports recently did tests of repellants.
http://www.consumerreports.org/cro/mobile/ratings/products/category/34772.htm

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The Consumer Reports rated Sawyers Picardin as top choice.

I noticed that they did not test any products with permethrin as the active ingredient. Even with most of the talk here focused on DEET, what I’m interpreting is that the best defense is a combo of treating clothing with permethrin and secondary use of DEET or picardin based products.

In my immediate location, I’m more concerned about mosquitoes as disease vectors than ticks. We have the Aedes mosquito here, which will allow Zika to become established in the Southeast.

So far, it sounds like the one two punch of permethrin and picardin, or permethrin and higher concentrations of DEET, would be the most effective defense against both ticks and mosquitoes.

There is antibiotic that kills the bacteria. But you got complication anyway… I got bitten by a tick I didn’t even see. All started like flu - bad headache and fever. Then my son notices the bulls eye on my leg when I was crawling to the bathroom. It ringed a bell about Lyme disease, but I was feeling so bad that I asked my son to look online if there is fever with Lyme. He looked and said no. So I was waiting 2 more days, until I felt that my face muscles start to skew. Than I decided to look myself in the computer. So I lost almost a week untreated. The fever was gone on 3 day after antibiotics. But my joins are not good since that point, and also muscles are prone to spasms. It is nasty thing.

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That appears only to include products approved for direct application to the skin. I don’t see any permethrin products on the list.

No. There is no current cure for the disease itself. It can be prevented in many cases by taking Doxycycline-like antibiotics shortly after the exposure. Once the spirochete establishes itself in the body, I know of no cure.

I’ve had it since my early 30’s and the best they seem to be able to do is manage symptoms. If there were an actual cure, I’d love to hear it!

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Ticks are very dangerous as are the other blood suckers such as Mosquitos. In our area the mosquito carry several illnesses. Found a dead bird yesterday and it wasn’t the ticks it was the Mosquitos. In Missouri the ticks are dangerous. I got bit hundreds of times and was in bed sick with a rash for two weeks in my early 20s from them. We do not have those ticks in Kansas. The diseases were not well known then and I healed from the rash and was left with dozens of quarter size marks for awhile afterwards. We do not have seed ticks here like they do in the old growth forests there. The ticks live in the leaf bedding year round which keeps them warm in the winter. Flu like symptoms for two weeks is saying it mildly. Our ticks are not known to carry those types of diseases. We also don’t have thousands of ravenous ticks waiting around to jump on you like that so I was a bit surprised. People here say watch out for ticks and they mean a dozen.

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I’m from Wisconsin, and most of our relatives still live there. I took Mom up to Mercer Wisconsin to my Grandparents old cabin. My aunt and uncle own it now. He was one of the first ones to build on Spider Lake. My Moms brother and wife also live in town there and her other siblings came up from the lower part of the state. We were out joyriding taking pictures down Hwy G. Some lady planted lupine flowers for about five miles. They are a tall flower that looks like a rocket Popsicle. They filled the whole grassy area between the road and the trees. She must have planted for years. There was one area with rolling hills and the sun hitting it ahead that look to good to take a picture from the car so I got out and walked in a bit to get the best picture. Then I noticed bugs everywhere on the flowers they were clinging to me. I screamed ticks!!! In a panic I ran out and brushed about fifty off me. Then a mile down the road got back out and took my pants off and brushed about ten more off. I was lucky that the didn’t bite yet.

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That makes my skin crawl! I am glad you are ok.